Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Reader’s Question: how to handle a dismissal

A reader wrote in with the following question:
After working as a bank teller for 7 years, I was fired - so I was told -
because several customers complained about the quality of my service. There
were no complaints about my technical competence, and I never missed a
single day due to sickness. My question is, how do I work around this during
my job search? I worked there too long to leave my last employer off my
resume, but I can’t think of a way to minimize the impact when asked why I
was fired. Customer service issues seem to be an employability kiss of
death.